Vietnamese Defects To Laos

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31363, 8 May 1967, Page 20

Vietnamese Defects To Laos

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) PARSE (Laos), May 5. Calmly puffing an American cigarette ithe young North Vietnamese supply officer explained why he had decided to leave his job on the Sihanouk trail, writes Peter Braestrup of the “New York Times” news service. Braestrup wrote: “I was no longer so sure that the Americans were going to lose in Vietnam,” he said. “But mainly I was tired of three years in the jungle, and my wife, a Laotian, was worried too, so we came over to the Government.” Sub-Lieutenant Nguyen Khai Than, aged 30, was a prize catch for the American-

supported Royal Laotian Army in South Laos. He was the first officer to defect from the North Vietnamese forces maintaining Route 110, called the Sihanouk trail, a dirt road running 60 miles east from Cambodia to link with the Ho Chi Minh trail’s Route 96. Believed Genuine After 17 days’ interrogation, both Laotian intelligence officers and other sources were satisfied that Than was genuine. His knowledge of high-level Communist planning is limited, but he furnished Laotian T2B fighter-bomber pilots with enough information for a fresh attack on hidden Communist truck parks, supply dumps and newly-emplaced anti-aircraft guns along the trail. Than was interviewed at the headquarters of General Phasouk Somly. He answered questions to a Laotian civilian interpreter. Than said he was supply officer on the Sihanouk trail, whose growing activity was reportedly first discovered by Western intelligence early in 1966. Rice Shipments Although he spent most of his time in Laos’s Attopeu province, he also spent some weeks in neighbouring Stoeng Treng province in Cambodia, organising rice shipments. In February, 1966, Than had visited a rice-shipping town on the Sekong river, 20 miles south of where the Sekong bends east to form the Cambodia-Laos border.

For the most part, he said, the Cambodian rice was brought in bags to the border by Cambodians and picked up by Laotian coolies working for the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese. Then it went east, by night to Vietnam. United States sources in Vientnam have reported a major Communist supply area in the mountains “tri-border” region, south of the Sihanouk trail junction with Route 96,

where Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam meet. While Ho Chi Minh trail activity has apparently levelled off this year, the Sihanouk trail has become a major funnel for other supplies. Than confirmed reports that trucks were used along the Sihanouk trail in the current dry season, with heavilvladen bicycles and Sekong river boats being used extensively during the road-melting rainy season. He said he saw little damage from sporadic bombing by the T-28s although he noted the planes’ 5001 b bombs last month destroyed six trucks.

The road was kept in good repair by hundreds of coolies. He said that he also engaged in commerce on behalf of Hanoi. He sold salt from Cambodia to anti-Govemment Kha tribesmen and, with the proceeds, bought water buffalo, cows and pigs for the Viet Cong. Viet Cong Buyer Than said he was drafted into the North Vietnamese People’s Army in 1959 and sent into Central Laos in May, 1964, as a corporal. His first job was working as a propagandist among the Kha tribesmen. “I told them that we were here only to help the Pathet Lao against the Americans, not to take over Laos,” he said.

In March, 1966, he married a Laotian girl, but seldom spent much time with her. Plagued by sickness and loneliness, he decided to leave. One night, he and his wife slipped away, and ran into a Government patrol outside Attopeu on April 9. Than and his wife are living in a dormitory next to the interrogation centre at General Phasouk’s headquarters. The lieutenant would like

to stay in Pakse and work with the Laotian Government.

“I can’t go back to Vietnam,” he said. “The Government would kill me.”